Entries to Win Afghan

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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

I mowed some of the lawn today. Hopefully, I can get one more section done before it gets dark. This lawnmower is probably on its last legs. You may recall it's 26 years old. I've put quite a bit of money into it this summer, and I have to say that it's running better than it has in several years.

With one glitch.

But lets go back to the beginning. You may recall my entire week in May that I spent getting the mower running after a year of sitting... a very large paperweight.

Then the transmission gave problems. That was fixable, because it's so old it just uses belts. So that was a week in the shop.

After that came the really funny story I haven't told you. I took it out one afternoon and while trying to mow in my normal 3rd gear it was going really slow, as if it were in 2nd. So I thought maybe 4th would be like 3rd and shifted. Whoa! 4th was reverse! Glad I was well away from anything when I had that surprise.

So I decided that slow was better than nothing, so I just put it back in 3rd which was 2nd and kept going. Then I found that putting on the brake or clutch did nothing at all. No stopping! So I figured I'd mow until I ran out of gas or was done and would just turn off the key.

Then I hit a hole and just out of habit put in the clutch. Now it worked. In fact, it let me back out of the hole, and then the only speed I could get was 4th, which is really too fast for mowing, but hey... I knew another shop trip was in its immediate future, and I figured I'd better mow all I could while it was running. Suddenly, the lever that engages the blade just flopped out of place and had no tension. End of that mowing. (Of course, I never did get the entire lawn mowed.)

John (my mower guy) picked it up. Well. The problem was pretty weird, and must have been either partially or completely broken for a long time. The frame where the back axles connect was broken on both sides. That's why the belts couldn't get themselves in the right places for the gears. It's a wonder the whole thing didn't fall apart. So he welded that and brought it back. Started it up to drive off the trailer and parked it.

Then it rained for several days and the mower just sat where he had left it. When I tried to start it... nothing. I charged it up. Nothing. Note of explanation... you have to have the mower blade disengaged or it won't start. So that lever has to be down, and usually even held down with a little bit of force. But now the lever was floppy again.

John came again. The spring that controls the tension on the lever was just lying under the mower, broken. It must have decided it was too tired to play after being parked. So the mower sat there for several more days till he located a spring that was the same.

Now we are pretty much up to the present. You can see I got a lot of lawn mowed today. But not all- note patches with longer grass.

Here's the goofy, glitchy part. As I said, it's now running really well. In fact it's relatively so quiet compared to the last couple of years it's quite nice. But it only runs for about a half hour till it gets heated up. Then it coughs and quits and won't start till it cools down. So I can mow in spurts.

Please, God, just let me get the entire lawn cut one more time this year!

Monday, August 29, 2016

You've met Jade before (called Whitey for a very short time when Ester first got her).

She really likes to do a lot of this. She's the calmest dog I think I've ever seen.

But she's mine for two weeks now. Ester's kayaking trip is going well. Every day I get GPS coordinates and a short message from her brother's Spot unit. They've paddled far from where they put in, and today they said, "Everything's fine. We're having a great time around Caribou Lake."

I'm trying to get Jade and me on the two walk a day regimen I always had with my other dogs.

She's good with the short morning walk, but poops out near the end of the afternoon walk, which isn't even a mile. But she hasn't been getting much exercise. And Ester has no idea how old she is. If she was the age her former owner said, she'd be 11 now, but that doesn't make any sense. Sure, she's not high energy, but she doesn't act or look like an old dog.

Anyway, we are having fun. And, Ester loaned me her vacuum to deal with the white dog hair!

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

If you are going to have vermin in your kitchen, you might as well get something interesting from the experience, right?

I had a small bag of wheat flour that had been sitting in a styrofoam tray for quite a long time. I knew I was going to have to throw it out because the mice had chewed into the corners, and I could see that those tiny beetles that like flour had also taken over the territory. But I hadn't quite gotten into dealing with the mess yet.

Today I did. Just threw the whole thing into the compost and peeled off the plastic bag. But look what I found in the styrofoam tray.

The tray has beetle galleries in it! Who knew they'd chew their way through styrofoam just like they do in wood? I guess they can digest it, since I didn't see hoards of dead beetles. Is there a waste management application here? When I was working on my Masters (in that topic) we learned that actually everything, even the nastiest chemicals, can be broken down naturally. The big question is... can they be broken down in a meaningful time frame?

Anyway, here's a closer look.

Yes, those dark spots you see through the thin foam are more beetles, and/or larvae.

Hope this didn't gross you out. I just think it's fascinating. And, also, there is no particular pattern to the galleries like there is with some of the wood eating beetles.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

The defining insect of this hike was the sweat bee. Sure there were cicadas in the trees (but not like the last trip at ALL), and the wonderful cricket, and lots of butterflies, but the sweat bees were an unavoidable nuisance. There are two on my leg and several more on my shoe in this picture.

So, Ester was looking at one rather closely one day, and she said, "It doesn't look like a bee. It has fly eyes and fly mouthparts."

Huh. I'd never looked that closely before. Actually, I haven't seen too many of these since I was a kid, and I'm not a fanatic about insects the way I am about plants.

Anyway, it turns out she is right. These are actually hoverflies. There are lots of kinds of them. It might be Episyrphus balteatus, or maybe not. I didn't collect any for further study (unless I find some dead ones in my gear somewhere). I bet Ester has a few folded in the tent!

They can not bite or sting, but they certainly tickle. They like to just sit on your sweaty body and touch you gently, hoovering up the sweat. Tickly things make me nuts!

However, they are really good. Their larvae eat tons (probably literally) of aphids which damage all kinds of plants.

So, I learned something really interesting. Any my request is that you try not to swat the sweat bees. I think I only killed a couple when I just couldn't stand it any more.